Borneo (Sabah)

Borneo (Sabah)

Semporna
Mabul island - Sipidan
Sandakan
Sepilok
Mount Kinabalu
Kota Kinabalu - Island 1 & 2

After taking our first Air Asia flight to Kota Kinabalu, we realised that really we needed to be on the other side of Sabah and so took another flight to Tawau. This was an amazing flight as we could see the whole of Sabah from the air, rainforest, mountain ranges and gorgeous coastline. After climbing for 20 minutes we were finally level with Mount Kinabalu and the fear of what we were going to attempt/climb kicked in ... ahhhh!

After arriving in Tawau we took a taxi to Semporna, which was not quite what we expected. Semporna is a weird port town, pretty run down and a strange introduction to Borneo. We found quite a nice hotel to stay in and managed to get quite a good deal, so we were pleased with that. Until we got into bed that is ... and had our first bed bug experience. All we could do was ensure all our bags were closed, spray deet everywhere and sleep in our sleeping bag liners to minimise the damage. Needless to say we got no sleep and checked out at 6am, having got half of our money back and bitten all over!

We then checked into a really nice place built on stilts that sat literally on the ocean called the Dragon Inn. The locals call it the Drag 'em in, but it was a nice place to spend a night before heading to the islands ... the reason we ended up in this town.

Olly signed up with Uncle Chang to dive one of the world's most renowned spots for scuba diving due to its crystal clear waters, volcanic archipellago and amazing aqua life... Sipadan island. There is no way of staying on Sipidan island as all development on the island is strictly controlled and so we stayed on an island called Mabul, at Uncle Chang's cheap and cheerful resort. They have their own song that guests have to learn and accompanied by a drum kit made of buckets, guests are greeted and waved off with this cheerful tune.

Mabul island was really nice, although weird in some senses as there was a disproportionate number of children living there and some heavily armed police presence. About 5 years ago there was a kidnapping incident with some Filipino pirates and western backpackers around this area so that explains that.

For the first day we just relaxed and on day two, Olly took himself off diving. Olly did 3 dives in one day and said they were probably the best dives he haas ever done. He saw everything there was down there, turtles, fish galore, sleeping sharks, rays, snakes, coral, big fish, you name it.

After Sipidan we headed for Sandakan for a night before trying to seek out the Orang-utans. We decided to hit the town that night and bumped into two Aussie paramedics (ambo's) called Lee and Peter. Peter kept us amused for the night with his wise words ... 'the man with the most toys wins'...and he won with a variety of motorbikes, boats and cars - although Olly did hold his own with a uni-cycle, paraglider, clapped out moped and trumpet! He also advised us that every man needs a shed and in the shed should be three things;a pool table, a darts board and a fridge! So I will be waiting for that to be installed when we get home. Peter (who was ginger) also stated that Olly could join his Oranga club having noticed that he also sported a faint orange tinge ... so Olly was most pleased with that!

We said goodbye to Lee and Peter, left the next day and headed to Sepilok in search of the men of the forest. We checked into a lovely jungle resort right beside the Orang-utan sanctuary and spent the rest of the day lazing by the pool. The next morning we headed to the sanctuary for the morning feeding and two of the big ape's graced us with their presence, which was amazing to see (if you get a magnifying glass then you might be able to see one of them on one of the photo's). The idea is that the sanctuary has feeding platforms throughout the forest, in order to entice the Orang-utans deeper into the forest and make them more independent. The feeding platform that the tourist's can see is one of the last platforms they reach in their rehabilitation and they only go there if they want to ... so we were lucky that two of them were hungry. We returned again for the afternoon feeding and a baby one showed up for some banana's. It was also joined by an adult male, who was quite mischievous and decided to climb onto the viewing platform to have a nosy at the tourists. Up close he was really big and a bit scary really, but he continued to put on a show and we got to see him climb a massive tree which was brilliant to see. Unfortunately, the mobile phone had run out of battery by this point so no photographic evidence I'm
afraid. It is quite mad how much they resemble humans or how much we resemble them ... well
some of us more than others hey Olly!

From Sepilok, we took a bus to Mount Kinabalu Park HQ and as we started to get closer, the mammoth mountain we were about to climb became reality. The mountain is 4095m high and we were going to spend the next two days climbing it. We spent the night in our first dorm of the trip, bunked up with two fellow brits (Nick and Kaj), who were both superfit and had just spent a month trekking in the Himalayas ... oh dear, not much hope for us then!

The next morning we got up early, had a mega breakfast, met our guide and climbed the 2500 steps (some of which were half a metre high) to the rest house where we would spend the night. By the time we arrived (about 4 and a half hours later) Nick and Kaj were already waiting for us ... having arrived 2 hours earlier they were well settled in and had the monopoly board ready and waiting. We had met an Australian couple on the way up (Jamie and Angela), so the six of us spent the rest of the evening buying property, paying our way out of jail and drinking a ridiculous amount of water to try to combat altitude sickness!

The next morning was an early start ... 2am for a light breakfast and back on the old legs at 2.30am. Armed with our head torches and some warm clothes, we started the final climb. The first part of the trail to the summit was up steps (made from rocks or tree roots) and the second half was on rock face, some of which was very steep ... you needed to use a rope to pull yourself up, which was a bit scary in parts. Good job it was dark!!! Olly was suffering a little bit with the altitude and just a few steps felt like you had had walked a mile ... but we made it to the summit for sunrise and suddenly all the hard work seemed well worth it (especially as I finally had an excuse to wolf down a whole bar of wholenut for
breakfast!). It was a lovely clear day and the views were amazing.

The walk back down was probably the toughest part, partially as we were getting tired, but mainly the toll it took on your knees walking down all those steps. My legs gave up a couple of times and I ended up on my back... luckily I had the rucksack on which acted as a crash mat and Olly could finally use that as an excuse for being a lazy bugger and giving his woman the bag to carry!

We made it down safely, had an early night and headed to Kota Kinabalu the next day ... with very sore legs and a peculiar walk. Now we looked like all those people we had been laughing at for the past few weeks ... well that is karma for you and the kinabalu legs had definitely got a hold on us. The weather was against us for the next couple of days, so we spent them hobbling around shopping malls, getting free leg massages from gadget shops and eating indian food (not more curry I hear you say).

For our last two days in Sabah the weather improved and so we spent them on two of the local islands ... Manakin and Mandukan. Both the islands had lovely beaches and the snorkeling was pretty good too, loads of parrot fish, angel fish and giant nemo's... All actively encouraged by the hordes of Chinese/Korean tourists throwing handfuls of dried bread into the water.

Sadly, Borneo has now come to an end and it is only 3 days until we fly home. Singapore is the next
destination and then back to the good old motherland... so we will see you all soon!

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